Magenta to Pink 



From the silky coma on which the small seeds float . 

 from long pods to Found new colonies, from the op| 

 milky juice, and certain structural resemblances in the fl< 

 one mightguess this plant belonged to the milkweed tribe. 

 merly it was so classed ; and although the botanists have now 

 removed its family one step away, the milkweed butterfli 

 pecially the Monarch [Anosia plexippus), ignoring tl 

 dividing line of man. still includes the dogbane on its visiting list. 

 We know that this plant derived its name from the fact thai 

 considered poisonous to dogs ; and we also know that all the 

 tribe of milkweed butterflies are provided with protective 

 tions which are distasteful to buds and predaceous in 

 ing their immunity from attack, it is thought, from the acrid. 

 poisonous character of the foliage on which the caterpillars feed. 



Common Milkweed or Silkweed 



(Asclcpiiis Syrtaca) Milkweed family 



{A. cornuii of Gray) 



Flouxrs — Dull, pale greenish purple pink, or brownish pink, borne 

 on pedicels, in many flowered, broad umbels. Calyx inferior, 

 S-parted ; corolla deeply 5-cleft, the segments turned back- 

 ward. Above them an erect. 5-parted crown, each part 

 called a hood, containing a nectary, and with a tooth on 

 either side, and an incurved horn projecting from within. 

 Behind the crown the short, stout stamens, united by their 

 filaments in a tube, are inserted on the corolla. ! 

 anthers united around a thick column of pistils terminating 

 in a large, sticky, 5 -angled disk. The anther sacs tipped 

 with a winged membrane ; a waw, pear-shaped pollen- 

 mass in each sac connected with the stigma in pairs or fours 

 by ;< dark gland, and suspended by a sMlk like a pair of sad- 

 dle-bags. Stem: Stout, leafy, usually unbranched, ; t<> 5 ft 

 high, juice milky. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, enl 

 smooth above, hairy below, 4 to 9 in. long. Fruit: 2 thick, 

 warty pods, usually only one filled with compressed seeds 

 attached to tufts of silky, white, fluffy hairs. 



Preferred Habitat — Fields and waste places, roadsides. 



Flowering Season — June September. 



Distribution— "New Brunswick, tar westward and southward to 

 North Carolina and Kansas. 



After the orchids, no (lowers show greater executive ability, 

 none have adopted more ingenious methods of compelling 

 to work for them than the milkweeds. Wonderfully have they 



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